1. Why were the senses of such intense interest for the early science of psychology? What were Fechner’s insights and why were they important for scientific psychology?
Early psychology was rooted in a combination of physics, physiology, and mental philosophy. The senses are an early point of connection between these three fields. Physics is clearly implicated, as the phenomena we encounter is based in physics, be it the frequency of a sound wave, the photons and their frequency that constitute light, or the pressure applied to the body that is represented in the sensation of touch. Physiology is the means of translation from physical phenomenon to felt sensation, as the ear and connected nervous system turn a sound wave into a note with with pitch, timbre, and volume, or the eye and connected nervous system turn light into a figure with color, shape, and brightness. Mental philosophy is implicated in the senses when one considers the epistemological question of the day, which was whether or not our experiences of the outside world furnished our knowledge, and if that knowledge could be trusted. British Empiricism, as exemplified by John Locke, was the first philosophy to assert that the senses are the …show more content…
This can be considered the basis for scientific psychology, as it is the study of the relationship between the physical world and the mental world, and by providing an avenue for studying not only the senses, but the ways in which our perception is changed by psychological process, he paved the way for studying psychological processes effects on itself, or metacognition. 2. Review and critique Wundt’s ideas and methods. How did (or did not) they advance the field of psychological
Early psychology was rooted in a combination of physics, physiology, and mental philosophy. The senses are an early point of connection between these three fields. Physics is clearly implicated, as the phenomena we encounter is based in physics, be it the frequency of a sound wave, the photons and their frequency that constitute light, or the pressure applied to the body that is represented in the sensation of touch. Physiology is the means of translation from physical phenomenon to felt sensation, as the ear and connected nervous system turn a sound wave into a note with with pitch, timbre, and volume, or the eye and connected nervous system turn light into a figure with color, shape, and brightness. Mental philosophy is implicated in the senses when one considers the epistemological question of the day, which was whether or not our experiences of the outside world furnished our knowledge, and if that knowledge could be trusted. British Empiricism, as exemplified by John Locke, was the first philosophy to assert that the senses are the …show more content…
This can be considered the basis for scientific psychology, as it is the study of the relationship between the physical world and the mental world, and by providing an avenue for studying not only the senses, but the ways in which our perception is changed by psychological process, he paved the way for studying psychological processes effects on itself, or metacognition. 2. Review and critique Wundt’s ideas and methods. How did (or did not) they advance the field of psychological